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SPEECH CUE 1 

Senstor CHARLES ¥. JONES, 

OF FLORIDA, 

Delivered at Boston, Mass., June 17th, 1882, 

ON TIIIJ OCCASION OF THE CELEBRATION OF THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

DECLARATION OF IRISH LECSLATIVE INDEPENDENCE, 



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SPEECH OF 

SENATOR CHARLES W. JONES, 

OF FLORIDA, 

DELIVERED AT BOSTON, MASS., 
June 17th, 1883, 

ON TILE 

Occasion of the Celebration of the Anniversary 

of the Declaration of Irish Legislative 

Independence. 



Ladies and Gentlemen : It has been ray fortune to address my fellow-citizens 
under varying- circumstances and upon a variety of topics. While not very old in 
the public service or very young in the work of public discussion, I am still very far 
from that standard of advanced experience and trained deliberation and confidence 
which could alone enable me to speak without emotion and a true sense of my de- 
ficiencies on an occasion and to such an audience as this. If it be true, as stated by 
Massachusetts's greatest orator, that genuine eloquence is not to be looked for in 
the cold or polished phrases of scholastic men, in the marshalling of fine sentences, 
exuberance of metaphor, in any of the forms or symbols of soulless and heartless 
speech, but if found at all must be sought after in those inspiring heaven-born oc- 
casions when it is permitted some favored mortal to become the organ of the realms 
of the highest thought and sentiment, in order to correct the abuses, promote the 
freedom and fire the hopes of his suffering fellow-men, — how sensibly must I feel 
when reflecting upon this great truth, that whilst all things this day conspire to 
make this an occasion when it would be possible for a great mind to give humanity 
a true picture of its own sufferings, and infuse into those thousands of hearts around 
me something of the spirit which stirred their forefathers to labor for freedom, I 
must speak to you in dull, uninspiring speech. I am not unconscious of the sol- 
emnity of this day, nor the memorable event in the history of human freedom with 
which it is now and shall forever remain associated. I am aware that the ground 
on which I stand to-day is holy, and it is most fitting that whatever is done or said 
at this time should be in keeping with the suppressed spirit of emotion and the 
patriotic feeling which now pervades this great city. I am not here to profane the 
sanctity of this day. I regard it as 

THE GOOD FRIDAY OF THE AMERICAN CONTEST FOR FREEDOM, 

held in sacred recollection by all lovers of liberty, because it was upon this day 107 
years ago that the " libations of popular freedom Avere quaffed in New England 
blood." Then there is a sense of propriety mixed in the moral and religious feel- 
ings of men which no refined spirit ever violates, and the humbler memhers of so- 
ciet) r can detect its invasion as readily as persons in the higher walks of life. But 
there never was a holiday that did not have its duties. The spirit of reverence 
which the memories of this day creates associates itself with the final triumph of 
liberty which followed. Had there been no Bunker Hill Ave Avould have had no 
surrender at YorktoAvn, and Avhile in the special circumstances of the struggle here, 
and the sulferings and losses Avhich resulted from it, there is much to sadden and 
depress us, still, Avhen regarded as the first important contest for American free- 



^ 






dom, and, therefore, requiring higher qualities of courage than any which succeeded 
it, I think it ought ever be a source of pride and rejoicing to the Bay State that on 
her soil the first great battle of the Kevolution was fought. But the great event at 
Bunker Hill has been well and eloquently commemorated, and I need not speak of 
its importance or results, for all the people of this great land are this day enjoying 
the blessings which it contributed so much to secure. And now I propose to say a 
few words in my own plain way about another land, whose whole existence, going 
back to the very dawn of civilization and Christianity, has been one long struggle 
for freedom. Centuries before the enterprising spirit of navigation ever contem- 
plated the discovery of this continent, the ill-fated land whose sufferings and op- 
pressions are now attracting the attention of the world was engaged in fierce 
contests for liberty. I don't think that there is a country on the faee of the globe 
about which so much has been written, and so little is known, as Ireland. When 
you reflect upon the vast numbers of people of Irish birth, who, from the Revo- 
lutionary period to the present, have identified themselves with this republic, con- 
stituting a power great enough to form a respectable State, and with interests 
ramifying every part of society — the bar, the pulpit, the press, commerce, polities, 
religion, everything — and still there seems to be less accurate information of a 
general character in regard to Ireland than in any other enlightened coimtry. This 
I regard as 

VERY UNFORTUNATE FOR IRELAND. 
The public opinion of the United States is a great moral power in the world, and 
there is no country on earth where human suffering and sacrifice of every kind are 
more likely to meet with proper sympathy and appreciation than here. Time and 
again has the generosity of America been brought into exercise by the sufferings of 
Ireland, but after the occasion for relief had passed away, little or no inquiry was 
made touching the causes which produced her distress. It is often said that there 
must be something exceptionally bad, either in the people or the government of 
Ireland, to give that coimtry the prominence it enjoys for agitation. The recent 
outrageous murders there have produced a sensation all over this country which 
was hardly surpassed by the assassination of our own Executive. It is not necessary 
for me to repeat my condemnation of these dastardly crimes which for the first time 
in the history of Ireland have associated her open and manly struggles for justice 
with a kind of murder which has ever been held in detestation and abhorrence by 
the true Irish heart. If there is a country in Europe where hospitality is not a 
hackneyed name, where neither treachery, infidelity, nor immorality has macks a 
perceptible foothold, that country is Ireland. If she has attracted more than her 
share of the attention of mankind by grievances and sufferings, it is because her 
sensibilities were acute and her oppressions greater than those of any other people. 
Her history is the " dark and bloody ground " in the annals of Europe. M. Thierry, 
a distinguished and impartial French historian, says : "The conquest of Ireland by 
the Anglo-Normans is, perhaps, the only one that has not been followed by a 
gradual amelioration in the condition of the conquered people. In England, the 
descendants of the Anglo-Saxons, though unable to free themselves from the do- 
minion of the conquerors, advanced rapidly in prosperity and civilization ; while 
the natives of Ireland, after five centuries, exhibit a state of uniform decline, and 
yet they are endowed by Nature with great quickness of parts and a remarkable 
aptitude for every description of intellectual labor. The soil of Ireland is fertile, 
yet its fertility has been unprofitable to the conqueror and the conquered, and the 
descendants of the Normans, notwithstanding the extent of their possessions, have 
become gradually 

AS IMPOVERISHED AS THE IRISH THEMSELVES." 
This singular destiny, which presses with equal weight upon the ancient inhabit- 
ants and the more recent settlers of Ireland, is in consequence of their proximity to 
England, and the influence ever since the conquest the government of the latter 
country has constantly exercised over the internal affairs of the former. The Irish 
problem, as it has been called, has been for centuries the most difficult in British 
politics, and it is to-day attracting more serious thought than any public question 
in Europe. By it cabinets and parties in Great Britain have been alternately put 
in and out of power, and to-day the most thoughtful and accomplished of British 
statesmen finds himself so embarrassed by Irish affairs that he is constantly vibrat- 
ing between the most extreme and inconsistent policies in the hope of quieting the 
excitement and restoring contentment in suffering and disaffected Ireland. I am 



aware that the wretchedness of the Irish tenantry is excessive, and I cannot believe 
that it was any part of the divine economy, while providing for the inhabitation of 
the earth by Christian men, made in the image and likeness of their God, to con- 
sign any part of the human family to the despair and misery which now afflict a 
very large portion of the people of Ireland. It would go very far to weaken the 
faith of the Christian in the mercy and goodness of the Almighty if it were possible 
to trace the sufferings and wrongs of the Irish people to the inevitable decrees of 
manifest destiny. I have never believed, and I do not now believe, that the condi- 
tion of Ireland is caused by the qualities and faults of her people. On the contrary, 
I have the strongest conviction that every evil which has afflicted and which now 
afflicts that unhappy country may be traced to bad government. In saying this 
I do not wish to be understood as saying that no credit is due to those who so hero- 
ically effected the great and good changes in the Irish government during the last 
and present century, that resulted so beneficially to the people. But I do mean to 
say that the existing condition of tilings in Ireland — discontent and misery — would 
not be in existence if Great Britain could have overcome her prejudices and her 
fears and jealousy with respect to Ireland, and treated the people of that unhappy 
land as they had a right to be treated under her charters, her compacts and prom- 
ises. It is often flippantly said that Ireland, as an integral part of the British Em- 
pire, is the recipient of the same blessings, the same laws, and same justice as Eng- 
land and Scotland. Ireland, although fully entitled to all the equality and justice 
due to any part of the Empire, has never had the full 

BENEFIT OF THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 

While her national feeling and characteristics are as strongly marked as that of 
any people in Europe, she has been treated as a slavish province that never had an 
aspiration, a history, or a vestige of sovereign power beyond what was impressed 
upon her by the fear of a relentless tyrant. Ireland has been for centuries a nation 
in chains ; for, despite all the sufferings and terrors which have surrounded her, she 
has never consented to the right of the sister kingdom to take away her autonomy 
or destroy her legislative power. From the time that Henry the Second obtained a 
foothold in Ireland by his compact with the Irish princes, down to the shameless 
corruption and sale of the Irish Parliament at the beginning of the present cen- 
tury, the Irish people have — sometimes by protest, sometimes by arms, but always 
in some way — stoutly denied and resisted the right and power of England to make 
laws for Ireland. No statute of limitations, no usage, no laches of any kind, from 
the twelfth to the beginning of the eighteenth century, can be pleaded against the 
Irish people on this great question. Her statesmen, her priests, and people have 
acquiesced at times in the imperial connection. They have been willing to abide by 
the compact which gave up the executive power, but always clung with unyielding 
devotion to the sacred right of Ireland to make all necessary local laws for the 
government of her own people. 

And in reviewing the long and bitter contest for freedom which Ireland has 
maintained, and which it seems to be her destiny never to abandon, there is one 
bright spot in her eventful history which will always exalt the pride, inspire the 
hopes, and redeem the errors of her devoted people. I refer to the glorious era of 
Irish legislative independence. After 600 years of almost constant battling for 
justice — sometimes in the council chambers, at others in halls of judicature, nor 
unfrequently in the battle-field — the happy juncture in human affairs arrived which 
made her long-cherished anticipations of liberty a bright reality. America, with a 
new-born grievance, almost identical with that of Ireland, resisted the right of 
England to do what she had long done in Ireland — bind the people of the colonies 
by a system of laws 

ENACTED WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT. 

It seems to have been the settled policy of Great Britain at that time to rule every 
distant country over which she acquired jurisdiction through a parliament in which 
they had no voice. It was in this way that she was able to crush out all maritime 
and other industrial interests in her colonies which in any way came in conflict 
with her own. Her commercial and navigation laws secured to Englishmen a 
monopoly of the business of the world. After compelling her Irish subjects to 
engage in the culture and manufacture of wool, when their industry came in con- 
flict with her own she crushed it by a single blow ; closed her own and the ports 
of her colonies against Irish manufactures, and left the capitalists that created 
them and their operatives in penury and want, And this was true with respect to 



4 

the manufacture of glass, in which the Irish had made much progress. Some 
people, I know, imagine that the desire of England to retain legislative control 
over the countries within her jurisdiction is to be justified by the necessity for 
uniform and stable government. Nothing is farther from the truth. Her colonial 
policy, her commercial policy, her Irish policy, now and at all times, was based 
upon nothing but the most selfish considerations, chief among which was the aim 
to promote the interests of Englishmen at the expense of all others. Ireland, 
exhausted and impoverished by war in the early Stuart reigns, began to improve 
her condition. In the time of Charles the Second she made such progress in the 
raising of horned cattle that the jealousy of the English farmers was aroused. 
She had the finest pasture lands in the world. The export of live cattle to England 
was carried on upon a great scale. In 1663 this import trade was forbidden by 
act of Parliament, which was made perpetual in 1666. Sir W. Petty says that this 
law destroyed three-fourths of the trade of Ireland. In the same year she was cut 
oft" from all right to participate in the colonial trade of Great Britain. Under tho 
British navigation laws no European merchandise could be imported into the 
British colonies except directly from England, in ships built in England and 

MANNED BY ENGLISH SAILORS. 

No articles or products could be brought from the colonies to Europe without first 
being landed in England. When the Irish cattle trade was broken up by the act 
of 1663, the people^ as I said awhile ago, turned their attention to the production 
of wool and its manufacture into articles of clothing. The infamous Straft'ord was 
in power in Ireland when this industry was first developed, and he wrote to Eng- 
land saying that he would destroy it, as it would compete with English interests. 

But despite all obstacles he put upon this industry it continued to prosper until 
1699, when, by act of the English Parliament, exports of woollen manufactures, 
both to England and all the world, were absolutely prohibited. " Ireland," wrote 
Swift, " is the only kingdom I ever heard or read of, in ancient or modern story, 
which was denied the liberty of exporting their native commodities wherever they 
pleased, except to countries at Avar with their own prince and state." This in- 
famous law was passed in the reign of a man whom a set of partial writers are in 
the habit of calling an enlightened statesman. Swift, in his celebrated letters, has 
illustrated the struggle of Ireland for industrial rights— by the fable of the Goddess 
and the Virgin. The former had "heard of the latter's great fame for spinning 
and weaving. They both met upon a trial of skill, and the Goddess finding herself 
almost equalled in her own art, struck with rage and envy, knocked down her rival, 
turned her into a spider, enjoining her to spin and weave forever out of her own 
bowels and in a very narrow compass." But I have digressed somewhat. The 
example of Ireland was before America when England decided to tax the latter 
without her consent. She took in the whole field of future misery, degradation, 
and suffering in store for this people if this tyrannical policy was adopted, and she 
wisely decided to go to war rather than submit to it, and the blood that was shed 
on yonder hill was shed to prevent England from governing this country as she did 
Ireland, and drawing to her own dominion all the benefits resulting from the 
wealth and labor of this people. This great contest for self-preservation on the 
part of the colonists against the 

SELFISH AND ABSORBING IMPERIALISM 

of the mother country afforded to suffering Ireland the first opportunity she had for 
centuries of emancipating herself from the commercial and political degradation in 
which the system of English misrule had placed her. In the prosecution of her un- 
holy purpose of subjugation, England found herself at war with the United Colo- 
nies, France, and Spain at the same time. Then it was she turned to Ireland for 
succor and support, and Ireland, always ready to listen to appeals of kindness and 
conciliation, for a time lent her ear to her seductive persuasion. The Irish Parlia- 
ment was in existence, but it represented but a fragment of the Irish people. Tliree- 



T 

America that they issued a special address to the Irish people, in which the cause of 
the colonies is truthfully stated to be the cause of Ireland. Benjamin Franklin, 
representing this country abroad, visited Dublin and was well received. He was 
admitted to a seat on the floor of the Irish House of Commons, a very high distinc- 
tion in that body, for it was at that time in part composed of some of the most gift- 



(>d men the world ever produced. There can be no doubt but that the sympathy 
of the Irish people was overwhelming' in favor of America. It has been authori- 
tatively stated that no foreign people were so 

NUMEROUSLY REPRESENTED IN THE CONTINENTAL, ARMY 

as the Irish. The celebrated Pennsylvania line was composed almost exclusively 
of them ; and those who imagine that Irishmen did not have much to do in raising 
this great fabric of popular government, in which their voice is such an important 
factor, have not read the history of their country. It was not unnatural for Ire- 
land, whose heart from the first inception of the American struggle up to the pres- 
ent time has ever been with this countiy, to look for sympathy and kindness in 
return when involved in a life and death contest to save her people from that 
wretched system of provincial oppression from which America was providentially 
rescued. The commercial emancipation of Ireland in 1782 preceded her political 
liberation. Grattan was not satisfied with free trade, for, as he well said, the 
power which destroyed the industrial prosperity of Ireland would do so again if 
permitted to continue. There was no security for Irish interests except in com- 
plete legislative independence, and for this he labored with all the force and reso- 
lution of his transcendent genius and courage. In a speech delivered in the Irish 
Parliament on February 22, 1782, he examined the title of England to make laws 
for Ireland from the reign of Henry II. to that of George I., when the declaratory 
act was passed affirming the authority of Great Britain to bind his country by leg- 
islation without representation or consent. Every statute and rescript relating to 
Ireland passed or issued in every reign during 600 years of flagrant usurpation was 
for the first time held up to the face of the governing power by this great advocate 
of Irish rights, to show the utter nakedness and deformity of the argument upon 
which Ireland had been robbed of her liberty. There was no conquest, there was 
no consent, no compact or law of any kind to justify the claim of power put 
forth against Ireland. The Crown lawyers were amazed; the British Cabinet 
were confounded ; the Viceroy of Ireland was convinced, and there was not any- 
where in the great empire a friend of usurpation or a foe to liberty strong enough, 
learned enough, or bold enough to controvert the arguments or resist the torrent 
of eloquence poured fortli by Grattan 

IN DEFENSE OF HIS NATIVE LAND. 

The necessities of foreign service and the war in America left Ireland comparatively 
free from armed force. The best blood and families in the country decided to form 
a volunteer army. Eighty thousand men, under the inspiration of Grattan and the 
leadership of Lord Charlemont, sprang into organized life, splendidly armed and 
clothed, in a few months. The nobility and gentry stood side by side. The mer- 
chant, farmer, and mechanic put aside the drudgery of life and touched elbows in the 
ranks! The first noblemen in the realm commanded divisions of the troops, and 
gave up the luxury of their splendid homes for the common fare of the camp. 
Ireland, for the first time in centuries, witnessed her destiny in the hands of her 
warrior sons. Well might Grattan exclaim: "Let corruption tremble; let the 
enemy, foreign and domestic, tremble; but let the friends of liberty rejoice at these 
means of safety and this hour of redemption." Listen to this more than mortal 
man when, on April 19, 1782, bespoke in support of the liberty of Ireland: "I 
might," said he, u as a constituent, come to your bar and demand my liberty. I 
do call upon you, by the laws of the land and their violation, by the instruction of 
eighteen counties, by the arms, inspiration and providence of the present moment, 
tell us the rule by which we shall go— declare the liberty of Ireland. I will not be 
answered by a public lie, in the shape of an amendment; neither, speaking for the 
subjects' freedom, am I to hear of faction. I wish for nothing but to breathe, in 
this our island, in common with my fellow subjects, the air of liberty. I have no 
ambition, unless it be the ambition to break your chains and contemplate your glory. 
T will never be satisfied so long as the meanest cottager in Ireland has a link of the 
British chain clanking to his rags. He maybe naked; he shall not be in iron. And 
I do see the time is at hand. The spirit is gone forth, the declaration is planted, and 
though great men should apostatize, yet the cause will live ; and though the public 
speaker should die, yet the immortal fire shall outlive the organ that conveyed it, and 
the breath of liberty, like the word of the holy man, shall not die with the prophet, 
but survive him. I move that the King, the Lords and Commons of Ireland, are 
the only powers competent to 



MAKE LAWS FOR IRELAND." 

When this noble speech was delivered the capital of Ireland presented a different 
spectacle from what it does to-day. Then the genius, the wealth, the great intel- 
lect of the country were smitten, as if by heavenly inspiration, with a sudden, a 
fervent devotion for their native laud. The scene in the Irish House of Commons 
when Grattan electrified the nation by an eloquence never before heard in the 
British Isles, and which, according to the authority of Lord Byron, surpassed even 
that of Demosthenes, no contemporary pen has been able to accurately describe. 
There is nothing in British parliamentary history to compare with it, unless it be 
the grand scene presented to the world when Edmund Burke, the friend and 
countryman of Grattan, in stately phrase and magnificent exordium, opened before 
the assembled nobles of Britain the history of the crimes and oppressions which 
made infamous the administration of Hastings in the East. That magnificent 
structure, now the depository of money-changers, which stands in College Green, 
will ever remain a memorial of the great achievements of 17S2. Within its sacred 
walls the voice of patriotism, inspired by the recollections of centuries of oppres- 
sion, proclaimed to the world in language of burning truth that Ireland was and 
of right ought ever to remain a free and independent nation. And who can say, 
after what followed the achievement of her legislative independence, that the 
source of her sufferings and poverty was not in the misrule of her government? 
All impartial historians concur in acknowledging that the restoration of Irish 
liberty brought back, as if by the touch of magic life, prosperity and happiness to 
the country. Commerce, the handmaid of agriculture and manufacture, put on 
new wings and wafted to every corner of the world the products of the loom and 
the field. The depressed, half-naked, and half-fed peasant raised up by the com- 
forts of a better life, began to assume the real stature and dignity of a man. The 
paleness of poverty disappeared from his cheek, and the dread of oppression, worse 
even than the sting of hunger, was removed from his heart. Confidence and kind- 
ness between the lowly and exalted took the place of suspicion and distrust ; and 

ALL CLASSES AND CONDITIONS OP MEN, 

animated by the restoration of freedom, labored for individual happiness and pub- 
lic prosperity. Grattan walked to the senate house between long lines of armed 
men. For the first time since Sarsfield and his brave followers bade adieu to their 
native land and embarked to take service under the banner of France, did Ireland 
feel that she had a soldiery of her own. upon whose courage and resolution she 
could rely for the restitution of her ancient rights. But her day of jubilee and 
freedom was of short duration. The first taste of liberty which was given to her 
seemed after all to have been intended to render more bitter and humiliating the 
dark cup of sorrow and oppression which was afterwards put to her lips. A few 
years of glory, of happiness, independence and prosperity was all she was per- 
mitted to enjoy. After this came the murtnurings and finally the reality of atro- 
cious, bloody, and destructive war. Relying upon the faith and pledges of the 
sister kingdom, and yielding in return a devotion and loyalty of which England 
ought to have been proud, she went on prospering and rejoicing on the course of 
freedom without suspicion or distrust. But her ancient enemy viewed with alarm 
and jealousy the rise and progress of her late despised and oppressed province. 
The freedom of America liberated England's army and increased her power at 
home. English interests and English hate of Ireland were intolerant of Irish 
power, Irish liberty, or Irish happiness. The boon of independence conceded in the 
hours of her weakness she determined to obliterate in the hour of her strength. 
Fatal and wicked mistake ! There was the opportunity for lasting union and con- 
cord between these countries. Ireland redeemed and regenerated was a pillar of 
strength and honor to the empire. Ireland oppressed, degraded, and impoverished 
ever was and ever will be the source of its weakness, of its security, and its shame. 
The great rebellion of 179S,follovved the short era of independence, prosperity, and 
peace. I would not dare to lift the veil which shuts out the picture of that terri- 
ble event. The horrors and enormities it created cannot be recited here. 

DKCENCY FORBIDS IT; 

humanity forbids it; my own feelings, so often shocked by reading of what then 
occurred, could not stand the recital. The hopes and aspirations of Ireland cul- 
minated in independence, peace, and prosperity, and after a few years they were 
extinguished in the blood of her innocent people. Age nor sex could plead no 



exemption from rapine and murder. The aged mother and the gray-haired father 
were often bayoneted to the floors of their humble dwellings for standing between 
a terrified daughter and a fate worse than death in any of its hideous forms. Corn- 
wallis was there, lie had seen much of blood in the American struggle, but his 
soldier heart was horrified at what he saw in Ireland. The humane Abercrombie 
was there, and he plead in vain for the unarmed people. Children clinging to 
their mothers, wives clinging to their husbands, husbands on their knees praying 
for mercy, were slaughtered in groups to glut the fiendish spirit of vengeance that 
ran riot throughout the land. When before in the history of the world were such 
sacrifices made or penalties inflicted in the cause of freedom? Oh, God! how 
mysterious are the dispensations of thy providence when scenes like these are the 
outcome of the villany and brutality of Christian men. And all this in a land 
where you woidd not travel a mile without seeing a temple dedicated to the worship 
of the Cross ! The follower of the meek and suflering Redeemer, anxious to pre- 
serve the integrity of his faith, turns away in terror from the bloody pages of 
Ireland's history. The scoffing infidel, gloating over the crimes and massacres 
perpetrated in the sacred name of religion, seizes it and unfolds it to his followers 
that they may derive satisfaction and encouragement from the chapter of horrors 
written in the blood of the followers of the Lamb. I need not tell you what the 
truth of history has long ago revealed — that the terrible rebellion of 1798 was the 
work of tyranny, fostered and inflamed by government the better to enable it not 
only to falsify the promises made to Ireland, but to destroy forever her hopes of 
national life. The groans of the 

VICTIMS OF THE REVOLUTION 

had not subsided when the plot to rob the country of her Parliament was set on 
foot. When martial law was in full and bloody operation ; when the whole popu- 
lace was prostrate and bleeding; when the statues of liberty were yet shrouded in 
the deepest mourning; when the looks and whispers of the people were marked for 
punishment and death ; when the hangman slept in his black cap, not knowing the 
moment his services would be required ; when bloody commissions sat at midnight 
to give form to the judgments before rendered at the castle ; when even the eloquent 
voire of the immortal Curran was silenced by the clash of arms as he tried to speak 
for the trembling and innocent victims, — then it was that England determined to 
cement more closely the ties of imperial connection by the destruction of that Par- 
liament and liberty which only eighteen years previous her king, lords, and com- 
mons had pledged their sacred honors to maintain. The union was carried; and 
if there is anything in the annals of the British Empire which its honor and fame 
required to be shut out from the light of day and the judgments of men, it is the 
history of the downfall of the Irish Parliament and the consolidation of all legis- 
lative power in London. Great and wide-spread were the discontents and hatreds 
which the confiscations of Cromwell, James, and William left in Ireland for cen- 
turies. The impoverished descendants of the owners of those fine estates which the 
conquerors took from their possessors and gave to their followers, long felt the im- 
pulse of vengeance rise within them when they beheld their fair patrimony in the 
hands of their enemies. These monuments of injustice have remained to this day, 
like the ghosts of some terrible crime, to carry dismay, insecurity, and terror to all 
whose rights are tainted with the guilt of their unjust acquisition. And if this be 
true respecting the property of Ireland, what must be the state of feeling created 
by the recollections of the unhallowed methods by which Irishmen were deprived 
of all that made their country honored and respected? The monuments of great- 
ness remain, but they are surrounded by the spectacles of present degradation and 
suffering. You know that when the immortal Grattan died in 1S20 he was on 

A MISSION OF LOVE AND PATRIOTISM 

to the British capital. The foremost people of England gathered round his son and 
implored him to permit the remains of his illustrious father to be buried in West- 
minster Abbey. The request was granted, and he sleeps to-day beneath the 
shadow of the magnificent monument which was erected to the memory of Lord 
Castlereagh. What thoughts must arise in the mind of the traveller who knows 
the history of those men when lie looks at the humble grave of the patriot and then 
at the imposing tomb of his enemy ! The one recalls the treachery, guilt, and bold- 
ness which planned and consummated the destruction of Irish liberty ; the other, 
the grandest exhibition of courage, devotion, and eloquence in his more than mortal 
struggles to save it. If the betrayer of his country can boast a finer tomb than 



8 

Grattan, his memory lives only in stranger hearts as cold as the marble above him ; 
while that of the patriot, the orator, the father of Irish legislative independence, is 
enshrined in the grateful and warm bosoms of millions of his admiring country- 
men. No public speaker ever drew from Byron the compliment he paid Grattan : 
Ever glorious Grattan, the best of the good, 
So simple in heart, so sublime in the rest ; 
With all that Demosthenes wanted endued, 
And his rival and victor in all he possessed. 

I can do little more in an address like this than touch upon two great events in 
Irish history. Grattan, while animated by the purest patriotism and possessed of 
one of the grandest intellects in the Empire, was still wanting in some qualities 
necessary in his day to oft'set the low and despicable schemers who labored to 
destroy the liberties'of his country. He was open, confiding, and honorable, and 
beino- an avowed and staunch friend of imperial connection, he did not imagine 
that England would ever attempt to destroy the independence of his country by 
means of open corruption, as he thought that that independence was the best pos- 
sible security for the lasting union of the two countries. The compact of 17S2, 
resting as it did upon the faith of two nations, he regarded as inviolable and im- 
mortal. Backed by the volunteers he won legislative independence for Ireland, 
and with this he thought the country was safe. He never reflected upon 

THE DANGER OF CONFIDING IN A PARLIAMENT 

which never represented the people of Ireland. Three-fourths of the people were 
Catholics, and while they were conceded the right of suffrage in 1793, at the time 
of the union in ISOOthey were not permitted to sit in their own legislature. The 
rotten borough system, in its worst form, prevailed in Ireland. The people had 
little voice in the House of Commons, and the House of Lords never did manifest 
any attachment for the interests of the country. Imperfect as the parliament was, 
it conferred many substantial blessings upon Ireland, and, at a time when three- 
fourths of the people were disfranchised, so strong were their national feelings that 
they took great pride even in a local parliament from which they were unjustly 
excluded. The great mistake of Grattan's life was in not pushing for a reform of 
the Irish Parliament before disbanding the volunteers. It is well known that this 
magnificent corps of citizen-soldiery were favorable to such reform, and Grattan 
had only to move for it to secure it. Had the Irish people been fairly represented 
in their parliament in 1800 there was not enough of gold in the British treasury to 
corrupt it. But the majority was made up of mercenaries and placemen. Out of 
the 162 votes for the union there were 116 of the latter, and Grattan has left it upon 
record that there were only seven out of the majority unbribed. The intellect and 
character of Ireland nothing could corrupt, and in their protests against the meas- 
ure they foresaw and foretold all the evils that have resulted from it. Pitt and 
Castlereagh urged it as necessary to the peace and loyalty of the country. But 
when has been the peace, much less the loyalty, since the union? At dark inter- 
vals, when power suppressed the public voice, there has been a seeming peace ; 
"but that peace sprang from terror, that terror from submission, and that submis- 
sion from despair." From the time of the union until the present the history of 
Ireland has been one of agitation, coercion, famine, and death. Many of the Catho- 
lics were reconciled to the union because Pitt promised them emancipation, which 
they were told an Irish Protestant Parliament never would concede; while the 
great body of the Protestants were won over to the support of it because they were 
told that the full freedom of their co-religionists under the domestic legislature was 
sure, and that there was no security for the established church of Ireland except in 
a consolidated parliament where the Catholics would have no voice. By thus 

ANTAGONIZING ONE RELIGION BY ANOTHER 

and arraigning Irishmen against their country, they were all made slaves. England 
has never yet by her policy inspired confidence in the Irish heart. Since the vio- 
lation of the treaty of Limerick and the banishment of Sarsfield, there has been a 
series of instances of bad faith. Had the compact of 1781-82, which gave life and 
hope to Ireland, been adhered to, I believe that the country would this day be 
peaceful and prosperous. Had the promise made by Pitt to the Catholics to put 
them upon a footing with all other citizens been fulfilled, the thirty years' agitation 
by O'Connell for Catholic emancipation, and with it the increase of bitter feelings, 
would have been avoided. In the end England was forced by her fears to grant 
the boon from which she might have reaped a rich reward of conciliation and grati- 



tude had it come in 1S00, from the fulfillment of her obligation and her justice. 
But the Protestants have been equally disappointed. They have been excluded 
from the great offices in church and state in Ireland, which are generally filled by 
Englishmen. The established church, for which they gave up their country, has 
passed away, and one of the very best indications of the present time for the regen- 
eration and lifting up of Ireland is to be seen in the complete elimination of all re- 
ligious feelings and distinctions from those associations and movements that have 
been inaugurated by Irishmen for the improvement of their native land. No one 
can deny that Ireland has suffered and bled for religion as no country in the world 
ever did. And why should this have been? It was part of the scheme of the op- 
pressor. Government put the foot of the Protestant on the Catholic's neck, and 
while they were fighting over religion, which had nothing to do with secular in- 
terests whatever, they were both left without a country, and their claims to the 
favor of the Almighty diminished rather than increased. I was delighted the other 
day when I saw it stated in the public press that Orangemen and Catholics came 
together in this city to express their abhorrence at the black deed which has brought 
so much dishonor and suffering upon Ireland. There never was any good reason 
why Irishmen should have stood out as an exception to all other people in Europe! 
in their hates of each other on account of differences in religion. But this was 
part of the scheme of oppression. By keeping the great mass of the Catholics 
ignorant and degraded (which was the effect of the penal laws), and then 

EMPLOYING FIRE AND SWORD 

to destroy their chosen faith with all the power of the government in the scale 
against them, it is easy to see how the Catholics for long centuries confounded the 
spirit of the Gospel with the rule of the tyrant, and turned away in loathing and 
abhorrence from the followers of a creed which for the purposes of tyrannical do- 
minion has propagated through fire and blood. But the situation is now very dif- 
ferent. If the country suffers, it is not any form of religion that causes it, and there 
is now no reason why Irishmen of all creeds and tenets should not unite in every- 
thing that is wise and honorable for the advancement of the interests of the long- 
suffering land of their nativity. From the time that Strongbow set his foot on the 
soil of Ireland to the present hour, there has not been a concession or an act of 
justice made or extended to that country that did not originate either in public 
agitation or fear of rebellion. The pampered press of this country has said much 
about lawlessness in Ireland. While this has been greatly exaggerated, it has ever 
been a wonder to me that the people there have shown so much regard for the law. 
When I reflect upon the wretched condition of the population of Ireland for cen- 
turies, directly traceable to the misrule of her government and the tyranny of her 
landlords, I wonder at the moderation and forbearance of their people. I know 
that a certain class of writers in this country and in Europe have endeavored to 
make it appear that the Irish are responsible for their own sufferings. Never was 
calumny as black and infamous as this. The prejudiced Tory cannot look at the 
history of Ireland with a straight face. If you were to present the volumes of it 
to his eyes, he would shudder at it as the guilty man does when confronted by this 
dreaded evidence of his concealed guilt. The sufferings and misery of the Irish 
people have ceased to be local questions. The boundaries of States and nations no 
longer circumscribe our charity and humanity. The convenience of government 
and the interests of rulers may require bonds and divisions to human authority, but 
God in His infinite mercy and goodness, looking to the well-being and happiness of 
all mankind, never intended that any of His creatures on earth should be shut out 
from that Christian sympathy and sustenance which He recommends to the suffer- 
ing and oppressed because they happen to live on a part of the earth's surface re- 
mote from our own. There was a time when African slavery at the South excited 
the indignation of some and the sympathy of others far away from the region 
wli ere it existed. England herself was not behind in the work of philanthropy. 

SHE HAD HER SOCIETIES AND HER EMISSARIES. 

Exeter Hall resounded with the eloquence of her orators, and even the London 
Times did not discover in all this anything that the world could complain of. John 
Mill has said that the Irish peasant was the only living mortal that had nothing to 
gain from increased industry and nothing to lose from increased idleness. And 
still no people in Europe have struggled harder by honest labor to keep out of the 
poor-houses than the Irish peasantry. Mr. Fawcett, in a late work on Pauperism, 
says that paupers in England are as one to twenty, and in Scotland as one to 

2 



10 

twenty-three of the population, whilst in Ireland they are only as one to seventy- 
four. And what does this show ? It shows that while the Irishman is compelled 
to toil in rags and on one meal of potatoes a day, with his little ones around in misery 
and ignorance, his pride and manhood prefer this condition to the soup and vermin 
of the poor-house. Nothing ever astonished me more than the position of a very 
influential portion of the American press during the past few years upon the ques- 
tions which have agitated Ireland. When the short crops resulting from natural 
causes, combined with exorbitant rents, produced a famine which threatened to be 
as terrible as that of 184G, the people there were in a condition to merit the sym- 
pathy of every generous and humane heart. They had sacrificed everything to 
meet the demands of the landlords. Every pound of hay, every fowl and beast, 
the favorite cow, all vegetable and animal products that a year of scarcity brought 
forth, were surrendered to the lords of the soil, and while these miserable people 
were living on roots, pale and haggard in their squalid cabins — women in tears for 
their suffering children, the strong man ghastly and feeble from protracted 
hunger — it was at a time like this, when Nature turned her own children and 
refused them sustenance, that the unfeeling minions of power, not content to allow 
these famine-stricken people to die within the walls of the huts their own hands 
erected, proceeded with the 

HELLISH WORK OF EVICTION, 

and turned thousands of famishing mortals out on the roadsides to perish. And 
when the kindred hand of charity was put forth to rescue and to save these unfor- 
tunate people from despair and death and famine, the envenomed and gall-written 
press of Great Britain sent forth its columns of abuse and slander to defame every 
friend of humanity who had a heart to feel or a tongue to speak for the victims of 
all this cruelty and suffering. The Times, the Standard, the Gazette had their fol- 
lowers here. While the crow-bar brigade was engaged in Ireland in dispossesing 
women and children, pale and weak from hunger, from the miserable huts that 
sheltered their poor bodies not only from the inclemency of the season, but from the 
stares and mockery of indecency to which their ragged condition exposed them — 
Can it be believed that there existed outside of the traditional prejudice an impartial 
heart whose, feelings and sympathies did not go out to those victims of suffering 
and oppression? The men of Boston, of New York, of every part of the country, 
who were moved by the unexampled wrongs and misery of the Irish peasants, and 
who in a generous and humane spirit east bread upon the waters for the sufferers, 
have, been held up to the country as invading the sacred rights of property because 
they espoused the cause of the weak, the friendless and homeless against the un- 
feeling, the powerful, and the strong. 

It has been estimated that the deaths in Ireland from famines and famine fever 
in 1S4G-7 were not less than 1,000,000 souls ; and with this terrible death-roll before 
the world and the indescribable sufferings borne in those years by the Irish people, is 
it to be wondered at that men who foresaw the recurrence of such frightful calami- 
ties in the future, and all caused by the land system, should have undertaken the 
great work of saving the livesof their countrymen and countrywomen by reforming 
that system? There was no question of politics involved in this great movement, 
and, better still, there was no question of religion in it. Protestant and Catholic 
have stood side by side for the first time since 1782, in order to bring relief to all 
classes of their suffering countrymen. No man who has investigated the cause of 
Irish suffering and distress can fairly discover a cause for it outside of the land sys- 
tem and the absentee system, which are evils that go band in hand. A few thou- 
sand proprietors own the entire landed property of Ireland, upon which nearly the 
whole population have to depend for support. Ireland is nothing but an agricultural 
country, while she has 

FACILITIES FOR MANUFACTURING INFERIOR TO NO OTHER LAND. 

I hear it often said that Irishmen are not obedient to the laws. When men are 
half-starved and half-naked after working twelve or thirteen hours a day they are 
not fit subjects for submission to the laws. Social and political society is created to 
ameliorate and temper the hardships and sufferings arising out of a state of nature. 
And when civilized and Christian men find that, instead of comfort and sustenance 
following their toil and exertions, they are robbed by authority of law for the ben- 
efit of a few, it is asking too much of human nature to ask such men to cherish and 
reverence such a system. When the union was carried, the Irish people were told 
that they would have equal rights with the rest of the empire. But look at the 



11 

history of the country since that time. The people, finding every promise of relief 
and reform wilfully and basely falsified, had recourse to public agitation and 
remonstrance to make their grievances known in order that they might be redressed. 
This was always the constitutional right of Englishmen. Why has it been denied 
to Irishmen? How was Parliamentary reform carried in 1832? By monster meet- 
ings that shook the foundations of the British Crown. Why were no coercion laws 
passed for England? When was martial law put in force in Britain? They have 
had riots, conspiracies, agitation, and murder there equal to what existed in Ireland. 
Did any puhlic minister attempt to deprive Englishmen of trial by jury when Mr. 
Percival was murdered in the lobby of the House of Commons? Did any one think 
of diminishing the securities of freedom when an English .jury liberated Hardy in 
the face of the Crown, and scut the seven bishops to their homes in defiance to the 
threats and curses of James II? 

NO MATTER WHAT ENGLISHMEN MAY DO, 

the constitution is preserved, while in Ireland it has never been permitted to ope- 
rate. Was it not lawful to agitate for religious freedom? Still O'Connell and his 
followers were watched and treated as felons for laboring to secure freedom of con- 
science for their countrymen. Did the people of Ireland not have the right to meet 
and petition for a repeal of the union? Still this was denied them, and their leaders 
were placed in the prisoners' dock in the Court of Queen's Bench, and afterwards 
in Kilmainham, for uttering less violent language against the government than that 
spoken by Lord John Russell and Lord Grey within hearing of the British minister 
And why should the members of the Land League have been prosecuted? Who 
in this country can sympathize with a government which claims to be free that will 
not permit its subjects to present to the world by means of public discussion the 
nature and extent of their sufferings? Why was the illustrious man whom we ex- 
pected here to-day thrown into prison? What was his crime? He attacked the 
land system of Ireland, and it was so rotten that it would not bear exposure. The 
world was ignorant of it. America was and is still ignorant of it, and Eno-land 
dreads to have it presented in its nakedness and deformity. The man who is ready 
and willing to impose upon his brother the chains of oppression while he boasts of 
his love of freedom is at heart a hypocrite, a tyrant, and a slave. I have ever ad- 
mired Mr. Gladstone. I have spoken in strong language of approval of his labors 
for Ireland. I knew very well that a people who drove the greatest parliamentary 
character that ever lived (Edmund Burke) from the House of Commons because he 
gave a vote for suffering Ireland, the land that bore him, would not sustain even it 
this day, any great measures of conciliation toward that country. I also know 
that any English statesman wdio desires to live in public life must not think 
of doing full justice to the Irish people. Still, if I were an English minister of 
Tory antecedents and liberal professions, I think I would have fl'uno- to all winds 
the seals of office, appealed to the free spirit of the empire for justification and 
have left to some North or Castlereagh the enforcement of the hated repression 
bill, and the trampling under foot of the boasted principles of the British constitu- 
tion in Ireland. The Irish people are now more than ever in the crisis of their 
destiny. 

THE MOVEMENT INAUGURATED 

for their relief cannot go backward. Let them be patient, law-abiding but firm in 
the assertion of their rights. Every advantage that was ever won for' Ireland re- 
sulted from the influence of her moral power. Catholic emancipation, legislative 
independence, the abolition of tithes, thus were won; and I have ever believed 
that but for the famine of '4G-7 and the dissensions in the Irish party the repeal 
of the union would have been accomplished in the same way. I hear there are 
divisions of opinion respecting the best policy to be pursued. I never quarrel with 
any man who seeks to relieve the sufferings of the oppressed. When motives are 
houest and the object the same, charity and kindness ought to reconcile all differ 
enees. I believe that it is yet possible for Ireland to become both happy and pros" 
perous, and if her people of all classes and all religions, those whose interest are 
wedded to her soil, continue to labor for the right of local self-government and 
peasant proprietorship in the soil, after making compensation to the landlords that 
these great blessings will and must be conceded, and after them will sure! v follow 
peace, prosperity, and happiness. 

I cannot forbear expressing to you my heartfelt gratitude for the great honor vou 
have done me by the patient hearing you have given me this day. If the imper- 



12 

fection of my speech needs apology or explanation, it may be found in the multi- 
plicity of cares and duties that have rested upon me since you indicated your wish 
to hear me on this occasion. I have attempted no effort at display. I have tried to 
perform the great duty assigned me to the best of my ability and with a full con- 
sciousness that the man who undertakes to speak for Ireland must possess power 
and intelligence far greater than any at my command. But I can assure you that, 
whatever may be the deficiences in the execution of my part of this day's perform- 
ances, my motive is not open to suspicion or distrust. I am not in want of oppor- 
tunities to display what little talent God has given me, and I did not come among 
you to strive for reputation and fame. But I confess my solicitude, on all occasions 
like this, both for the fame and the sufferings of Ireland. I know how inadequate 
my poor powers are to uphold the one, with her history of burning eloquence 
before me ; and I feel that no talent or language of mine is competent to portray 
tlie depth and the enormity of the other. I thank you. 



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